1. Technical Field
The field of art to which this invention pertains may be generally located in the class of devices relating to shock absorbers. Class 188, Brakes, U.S. Patent Office Classification, appears to be the applicable general area of art to which the subject matter similar to this invention has been classified in the past.
2. Background Information
This invention relates generally to shock absorbers, and more particularly, to a shock absorber which may be advantageously adapted for use in decelerating the final closing movement of a pivotally mounted member, such as a lid for a conventional copy machine. Many copy machines have a swingably mounted lid which must be swung upwardly from a horizontal closed position to an open position to permit the user of the copy machine to place a paper to be copied on a horizontal glass plate. After the paper to be copied has been placed in position on the glass plate, the lid is then manually swung from the open position toward a closed position over said paper, and in many instances the user of the copy machine will drop the lid cover instead of lowering it slowly until it is seated on said glass plate. A disadvantage of such a copy machine lid arrangement is that the final manually controlled closing movement of the lid causes the lid in many instances to be dropped on the glass plate, and sometimes on the user's fingers. Also the paper placed on the glass plate may be moved off the desired position, by means of the lid coming down too quickly and moving the paper off said desired position by direct contact or by air pressure created by the quick downward movement of the lid.
In view of the foregoing, it is a primary object of the present invention to provide an economical shock absorber which may be operatively mounted to a swingably mounted member, such as the lid of a copy machine, for automatically controlling the deceleration of the lid during the final closing movement of the lid.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a shock absorber which may be pivotally mounted on a copy machine and attached to a swingable lid of the copy machine so as to permit an initial free closing movement portion of the lid, followed by a controlled deceleration movement for the ending portion of the closing movement of the lid.